By Amber Walters
Hutt Japan Day 2017 was held at the Dowse Art Museum and Square on Sunday 19th November 2017. It had been announced by the Mayor at the previous year's biennial Japan Festival in the TSB Arena, that Lower Hutt would host a smaller festival in the in-between years. It was a beautiful, hot day and it involved market stalls inside the Dowse venue, two performance stages (inside the Dowse and outside in the Square), a food truck fair, skype window to our sister city in Minoh-shi and the amazing travelling photo booth. Nearly 3,000 people attended this event which was much more than anticipated and really showed a hunger for more cultural activities of this nature in the Lower Hutt Central Business District.
We are extremely grateful to the Hutt City Council for their Event Support Funding as well as Air New Zealand who kindly sponsored two free return flights to Osaka.
Read the full write up and see photos from the the day here.